Atlus’ parent company may soon have a buyer

A Bloomberg report from Japan states that Index Corporation is close to finding a buyer. For those who are unaware, Index Corporation is the parent company of Atlus and has found itself on hard times financially. Insider sources indicate that Sega Sammy Holdings is interested in purchasing, among several other unnamed companies.

Sources state that the candidates for purchasing will be narrowed down by next week and that the sale could be completed by the end of the month. There has been no mention of Nintendo as a possible buyer.

Around the web

It could, but Atlus games are not that high profile, but any exclusives with a name of any kind is better than none.

Wayne Beck

Atlus Games are not High Profile, but Atlas Games made by Nintendo would be.

Truthteller

True. Lol. I followed your website and I bought that Office! That’s a good deal. That Ebay feedback had better coincide with the shipment and quality! Luckily Paypal is there in case it does not.

Your money

Despite Nintendo’s financial troubles with the wii u, having games like shin megami tensei and persona could possibly boost wii u sales.
Now as Michael DeVore said, “the rumor based on Nintendo’s need, and their past relationship. There isn’t any insider leaking that Nintendo’s even shown up for negotiations.”

Poo

Please let it be that Nintendo is FINALLY purchase a new studio with the billions they’re sitting on.

Unfortunately, the rumor is based on Nintendo’s need, and their past relationship. There isn’t any insider leaking that Nintendo’s even shown up for negotiations. That doesn’t mean that N isn’t there, but it isn’t a good sign. It may also mean that Sega is being more aggressive and it may have turned into a bidding war. In that case it’s good for Index, but Nintendo is pretty conservative and probably wouldn’t go long in a bidding war.

greengecko007

Fans can see that Atlus would do well under Nintendo, and it would create a mutual benefit for both companies. Whether or not Nintendo sees that remains to be seen.

Your money

Despite Nintendo’s financial troubles with the wii u, having games like shin megami tensei and persona could possibly boost wii u sales.

Now as Michael DeVore said, “the rumor based on Nintendo’s need, and their past relationship. There isn’t any insider leaking that Nintendo’s even shown up for negotiations.”

He does have a point. So far, Nintendo has been very quiet about Atlus, showing no support and care. But there have been signs like the $30 eshop deal, and shin megami tensei X Fire emblem. Fans like us won’t know what will happen.

But, Time Will Tell.

Agent721

I loved Catherine… if we can see those those types of games on the N, I would be ecstatic.

Andreas Sunde

To be fair, Nintendo is very quiet about everything.

Your money

True

Agent721

Sega Sammy is a $5 stock. They have $2.0 billion in cash, but $1.1 billion in debt. Given those metrics, I don’t see how Sega could get into any bidding war. Part of its debt agreements will have requirements that they stay solvent, so Sega can’t do much if there’s a bidding war. Nintendo is a $15 stock, with $11 billion in cash & no debt. If Nintendo wants Atlus, it is theres..

Michael DeVore

The problem with a bidding war would be that Nintendo is Conservative, and Sega is Liberal. Nintendo has a habit of never overpaying for anything. It’s why they rarely sell at a loss. It’s why they stuck with carts a generation longer than everyone else. The nature of a bidding war usually pushes the price above the market value. Which given N’s history is to then pass. The only way I’d see N not passing is if the Bidding was with Sony, or MS. They would want to prevent Atlus from going exclusive for their competitors, but Sega is an Agnostic publisher so their is no threat of a change in relationship. My statement regarding Nintendo’s willingness to purchase was done in full knowledge that not even MS could stop Nintendo if Nintendo wanted it, and it only came down to money. The problem is N is Conservative to a fault.

Elem187

Wow Sega is in pretty bad shape… No way Sega can afford to bid. Sounds like they never got rid of their spend thrift executives.. Sega will need to plop down around 250 million to purchase Altus. Insanity to believe they would want this niche company that will probably just bleed money for them.

Namco any better?

Nintendo could absorb the risk just fine.

John Ellis

SEGA makes quite a lot of money from Pachinko, which is a big BIG thing in Japan. And they were able to buy Relic Entertainment recently.

Though the best buyer would be Namco, as they are the only big publisher that seems to know how to make a good JRPG, plus they are good with localisation.

Agent721

Sega did bid $200 million for Atlus. You can easily look it up online. No word on if it’s big enough or not, but the bids by about 20 different companies were over the minimum bid acceptable. That’s good news that we should keep seeing the games. I just read an interesting article on Forbes that says Sega is now focused on 2 things: Expending PC game output & expanding its working relationship with Nintendo. I view the latter as good news in terms of seeing Atlus games on N’s consoles.

Irishman

Sure, but none of the other big name studios in japan have sounded off on the matter either, not even SONY of all things.

The thing is… many transactions like this are kept private in order to prevent an influencing of the stock market over there. The fact of the matter is we probably won’t know who gets atlus until the proceedings are done.

Zombie Boy

“There has been no mention of Nintendo as a possible buyer”. This means nothing when you consider the previous statement “Insider sources indicate that Sega Sammy Holdings is interested in purchasing, among several other unnamed companies”.

So Nintendo could still be in the running and we just don’t know yet.

Elem187

Yeah Nintendo is easily the most secretive VG company around… Just because insider sources doesn’t say anything doesn’t mean anything.

Eduardo De Almeida Raposo

Isn’t this article from august 2nd? >.>;

Jon

I hope it is Nintendo.

Baum 「ツリー」

C’mon Nintendo! At least try to get ATLUS

MichaelEhrgott

It it’s Sony I’m going to be angry.

mcdonalds

People who say Sony wil, buy it are stupid, first off, Sony has 10 times as much debt as index, second the vg market is not as important as their others, they need to make their tvs, phones, tablets, sand cameras their main priorities. I want Nintendo to buy atlas, but I don’t really see it happening, if Sega buys them, I hope Nintendo buys Sega lo,.

Jake

NINTENDO! NINTENDO! NINTENDO!

Jake

Imagine (not possible,) but imagine if EA bought Atlus.

jay

EA’s been trying to buy everyone. I know what they’re trying to do.

They wanna make a DRM/Ad-supported console with tons of exclusives.
They wanted ps4/XBOne to be that console but they’re not delivering as promised.

CyanideInsanity

Honestly I’d love for EA to invest hundreds of millions in creating a console like that just to see it fail. It would hopefully teach them a lesson, though probably not.

Andreas Sunde

Investing that much money in a fail would destroy them. This would make me very happy.

Mark

EA is destined to die anyways. If they don’t change their ways, they’ll be on path straight to hell.

Maxwell Baumgarten

I would laugh so fricking hard.

Elem187

What would EA want with Atlus? They have zero dudebro IP’s. EA only does Dudebro.

ezquimacore

Nintendo, do yourself a favor and be a badass like the old days, buy this.

Lusunup

Come on Nintendo do something! make a move!

Schultz38

Fingers crossed for Nintendo. But SEGA wouldn’t be a bad alternative.

Mario

True, Those two companies are actually on very friendly terms. So SEGA is a good alternative if Nintendo fails to buy Atlus.

Marcus Navarro

Nintendo…you guys need this purchase. It’s really not an option when you think about it. The lack of 3rd party devs or big-name games, how Atlus is a HUGE up-and-comer in the game industry, the fanbase of their games, the Sony fanboy tears that would be shed, etc.

Think about the many 3rd party devs that aren’t interested in the Wii U. Now think about how popular Persona is. LOGIC!

RoboticLink

Too bad Nintendo won’t buy it, oh well at least it doesn’t look like Sony or Microsoft will buy it
I hope SEGA does, then at least there would be games for Nintendo

Tails the Foxhound

FYI, Microsoft CAN’T buy Atlus. There are apparently Japanese laws about foreign companies owning Japanese ones.

Dhruv Rajyagor

If that’s true, then on the bright side we don’t have to worry about EA buying Atlus.

Agent721

I thoroughly enjoy their games, I hope a quality buyer emerges that buys the entire company & not a piece meal buyout ( like THQ).

thedeciderU

ugghhh. the mention of fanboyism makes me dry heave.

leafsfan73

It says the parent company is close to having a buyer. Atlus is just one part of the parent company. I couldn’t see Nintendo wanting the whole company (there’s probably a good reason why they went bankrupt). If they were selling off pieces, i.e., just Atlus, then I could see Nintendo buying them.

Tails the Foxhound

The parent company is close to having a buyer [for Atlus]. They are selling off pieces of their company to pay creditors, not the company itself.

Dodge Pribyl

I would really like it to be a third-party company that buys them. Business would go on as usual, and we wouldn’t have PS Fanboys trolling more than they do here.

Elem187

I could careless about the trolls. I want Nintendo to pick up a healthy amount of JRPG’s….. And buying Atlus would cover all of their bases. Right now Nintendo needs to sell the Wii U everywhere, and buying Atlus would lock up Japan and obliterate Sony’s presence in Japan. With Sony concentrating mostly on the western market almost exclusively leaves the Japanese market wide open..

Also I believe the JRPG market in the west is probably substantial, if you pick up this software house you would lock up the niche fan base of JRPG’s in the west. The Wii U would be considered the JRPG console to own this generation.

mcdonalds

I don’t think lock up Japan, because atlas games, doesn’t sell that much, so there is something we are missing, what is really selling Sony consoles in Japan?

I’m hoping for SEGA, because they are friendly with Nintendo, but still release their games on other consoles. (I would feel kind of bad for Sony gamers who want Persona but not any other games on the Wii U.)

C4

I hope this goes well. Sega doesn’t even treat their own IPs well (not to mention Sega of America and Europe…) so I’m sceptical about that. On the other hand I can’t think of a much better 3rd party.

Maxwell Baumgarten

I agree. if it couldnt be nintendo, i would have to say sega is the only one i can think of. but with SMTxFE in development, it would probably be a good idea to buy them because theres already a partnership.

crocodileman94

I don’t care who buy’s it, as long as SMTxFE isn’t cancelled.

Maxwell Baumgarten

that would be great, actually. a standalone fire emblem game. N said it would only need something like 30,000 sales to be profitable. Pfffff!

TrueWiiMaster

It was 700,000, and for Fire Emblem, that’s a lot. Of the last 4 FE games only FE: Awakening sold that many or more.

Irishman

But Awakening was REALLY good and REALLY streamlined, which allowed for a more wide-reaching experience.

TrueWiiMaster

Yes, but it was also only $40, as opposed to a $60 Wii U game, and it was released on a platform with about 30 million systems sold. It wouldn’t be the easiest task to match its success on the Wii U, unfortunately.

Billy Poore

New Persona and Lufia plz.

http://www.senran-international.boards.net/ TwinTails

Come on, the suspense is killing us, man! ;_;

Andreas Sunde

Let SEGA buy Atlus, and let Nintendo buy SEGA.

http://www.senran-international.boards.net/ TwinTails

That would be ironic.

Mark

A merger Between Sega Sammy and Nintendo would be amazing; truly two of the best gaming companies in history joining forces! Just think about it, we might see a Dreamcast 2/Dreamcast U!

Maxwell Baumgarten

i think sega should just make their own console, and exclusify most of their games.

Deadpool U

That’s what SEGA and the ‘console wars’ were about them and Nintendo but they stopped and now we have sonic lost world.

Zombie Boy

If they did that, I’d HAVE to buy their console, and own a Nintendo and Sega system again, just like in the 90’s!

Mark

Sega is in no shape to make their own system. They simply don’t have the resources, even after the merger with Sammy.

So what if Sega buys them, they’ll help nintendo still.Mario/sonic games, besides they are helping Nintendo in either way.

starwars360

SEGA, NINTENDO, SEGA NINTENDO, NINTENDO SEGA, SEGA-NINETY!!!!!

perfectlyreasonabletoo

If Nintendo doesn’t pounce on this opportunity staring them in the face, they deserve to lose this generation. How much cash are they sitting on, doing nothing with? And here’s the chance to scoop up one of the best JRPG developers.

Persona 5: Wii U exclusive. How many guaranteed console and game sales is that? It’s money in the bank.

Tails the Foxhound

I don’t know, you could get whiney babies throwing Bayonetta fits again.

Tails the Foxhound

If Nintendo bought them that would be amazing. I’ve always admired the SMT series from afar but haven’t really gotten my hands on it until recently, and the less hardware I have to buy to play it the better. ‘Cmon, do this and give me a digital version of Digital Devil Saga 1+2. Do this a finally give me more freaking Snowboard Kids!

Wonderful101

PERSONA 5 WII U EXCLUSIVE…I’M DROOLING ALREADY

mcdonalds

That would be more bad ass, I wanted kingdom hearts 3 on Wii u so bad, but would take persona as Nintendo exclusive anyday.

Mohammad Badir

i don’t think they denied KH3 coming to the WiiU yet, Nintendo has a habit of announcing 3rd party games a short period of time before release (like CoD ghosts and Watch Dogs).